Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use pygmy in a sentence

14 example sentences · noun, adjective

Pygmy means a member of various legendary races of dwarfs, or supernatural peoples of diminutive stature. Example: “She's traipsed off to Borneo to see the lesser spotted pygmy owl, or something like that.”

Examples of pygmy by meaning

nounA member of various legendary races of dwarfs, or supernatural peoples of diminutive stature.

  • He describes dog-headed humans, pygmy men who grow their beards so long that they can be used as clothes, and affirms that it never rains in India.2015, Sam Miller, A Strange Kind of Paradise: India through Foreign Eyes

nounA member of one of various tribal peoples of the Congo Basin in equatorial Africa, notable for their very short stature.

  • The dark negroid Pygmies (Negrittos) are found in the Belgian Congo and in the equatorial area.1927, Donald A. Mackenzie, Footprints Of Early Man, London: The Gresham Publishing Company, page 176
  • Although Pygmies are relatively protected against gene flow from other populations, many Pygmy tribes show extensive gene replacement and few have remained relatively unaltered.2018, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, The History and Geography of Human Genes

nounAlso applied to various other peoples of short stature.

  • As the Bushman folk are of low stature - the men from four feet six inches to four feet ten inches - they are classed as "Pygmies".1927, Donald A. Mackenzie, Footprints Of Early Man, London: The Gresham Publishing Company, page 176

adjectiveUnusually short or small for its kind, especially in the names of animals and plants.

  • Amongst foodgrains, as we travelled from the green South and East towards the dry North and West, the pygmy crop of rice gave way to the tall bajra and jowar.1999, Ashok V. Desai, The Price of Onions, page 73

More sentences with pygmy

  • She's traipsed off to Borneo to see the lesser spotted pygmy owl, or something like that.From the entry lesser spotted
  • First we get pygmy hippos blown up, then we come across a dwarf skeleton.2016, Paul Johnston, Skeleton Blues. From the entry microphilia
  • Cupwings, also known as pygmy wren‐babblers, are very small songbirds found in Southeast Asia.2016, Handbook of Bird Biology, volume cupwings, page 55. From the entry cupwing
  • It is true they are pygmy clubs; just wee bits o’ things, toys.1923 August, “Golf”, in The Playground, volume XVII, number 5, Cooperstown, N.Y.: Playground and Recreation Association of America, →OCLC…. From the entry shorties
  • To much fanfare, Slowjamastanis may now legally own miniature giraffes and pygmy elephants, provided they obtain an exotic pet license.2024 November 6, Harvey Schmidlap, “BREAKING: The Sultan Wins Big in Slowjamastan Blowout Election…”, in Republic of Slowjamastan…. From the entry Slowjamastani
  • Pygmy squid spend most of their lives stuck to blades of seaweed with an absolutely fantastic little glue gland.2017, Danna Staaf, Squid Empire, ForeEdge, →ISBN, page 173. From the entry pygmy squid
  • In the confusion, I manage to squeeze free between a mountain weregoat wrestling with a pygmy weremammoth and a Yoshi.2015, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Feral Pride, Candlewick Press. From the entry weregoat
  • Here Native Tongues beats gird good-golly-Miss-Mali feminism, cameos from the Roots and This Kid Named Miles, pygmy flute-scat, and flurries of drum'n'bass-driven Björkian ecstasy.2000, SPIN, volume 16, number 1, page 126. From the entry Björkian
  • Other island examples include pygmy hippos, pygmy deer, pygmy foxes, and the peculiar “mouse-goat”—an extinct species of dwarf sheep that had lived on the Balearic Islands of Spain.2011, Dennis McCarthy, Here Be Dragons. From the entry mouse-goat

Meaning of pygmy

  1. noun A member of various legendary races of dwarfs, or supernatural peoples of diminutive stature.
  2. noun A member of one of various tribal peoples of the Congo Basin in equatorial Africa, notable for their very short stature.
  3. noun Also applied to various other peoples of short stature.

Full definition of pygmy

Questions about pygmy in a sentence

How do you use pygmy in a sentence?
Pygmy is used as a noun and adjective. For example: “She's traipsed off to Borneo to see the lesser spotted pygmy owl, or something like that.”
What is a short sentence with pygmy?
“It is true they are pygmy clubs; just wee bits o’ things, toys.”
What does pygmy mean?
Pygmy means a member of various legendary races of dwarfs, or supernatural peoples of diminutive stature.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pygmy (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use pygmy in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/pygmy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.